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RE: WILD EDIBLES AROUND THE HOMESTEAD
I know we have purslane up here because it's all over the garden. I think we have yarrow also, the others I haven't seen up here.
I know we have purslane up here because it's all over the garden. I think we have yarrow also, the others I haven't seen up here.
Out of these, yarrow is my favorite. It really likes the clay soil here and makes a nice ground cover. It can be mowed and will continue to grow back, like grass. It can also be walked on. It's quite nice with bare feet, lol. When it grows big enough to flower, they are pretty little white flowers which look great in flower bouquets. It's late in the year but I think we are going to toss some flower seeds down and see if we win the lottery haha. Never really tried flowers before.
Purslane, on the other hand, its more of a nuisance. It grows in our gravel driveway. It's so short and its flowers so tiny, its hard to get it all up. I want to collect seeds so I can move some of these things to better locations. Does it give you problems in your garden?
Henbit, altho pretty, is something you don't want. It's invasive and very hard to control. I mean, they all are I guess, but its benefits don't seem to be many as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather have white clover. It is pretty in the field when it's in bloom, though. Do you have to do a lot of weeding? I imagine not as much as other people because you have raised beds and a greenhouse.
Purslane is a pain in the butt if you let it grow. LOL
It would be all over my garden if I didn't keep pulling it out. I know it's edible, but that doesn't mean I want to eat it.
We use white clover as a ground cover, and to build up the soil in the garden if we have a part of the garden that isn't being used for crops. I tilled a bunch of it in before I planted the yellow potatoes this year.
I do everything I can to keep the weeds from growing in the main garden but I still end up with a fair amount of weed pulling. I cover all the ground that I can that's not growing a crop with something, old boards, strips of old rubber backed rugs, I even cut a couple of the plastic truck bed liners into strips to put between the rows of stuff to keep the weeds from taking over. That also makes it nicer to walk in the garden, you don't get muddy walking on the old boards.
The raised beds will get full of weeds if you don't do anything about it, but they're a bit easier to take care of, not so much bending over. I've been working on pulling the weeds out of the raised bed that has the carrots in it. I don't know where all the grass comes from, but it sure is a pain in the butt. Seeds, I suppose...
Something that worked well for me last yr was laying down construction paper over the planting crop area, poking holes in it. It will dry out easy unless covered with a mulch, but we used straw. We didn't get huge yields but because of the bugs. Stoopid bugs lol. Had no weeds in the grow area. I've been trying to kill out patches of lawn with black plastic with the intention of putting down clover. We have white clover but not a ton yet. The more we have the less mom has to mow. I'm trying to save seeds from that, too altho it's not expensive to buy. I really like white clover, but it'll take over, too. But that's my plan for the orchard area.
Ugh it'll be so nice to eventually get the infrastructure in. Won't eliminate the work, but I'm so slow that I'm months behind.
You can get large rolls of the construction paper at home Depot for around 10$
I think cardboard would work also, if you can get a lot of it.